Good news for sweet tooths everywhere: that sticky syrup you love to pour on pancakes and waffles is not only bad for you — it might be good for you, too.

In this 2007 file photo, a young guest catches a taste at the Bradley Museum Maple Syrup Festival in Mississauga.

By:Nicole BauteLiving Reporter, Published on Mon Mar 22 2010

Good news for sweet tooths everywhere: that sticky syrup you love to pour on pancakes and waffles is not only bad for you — it might be good for you, too.

Sure, it’s sugary and calorie-packed. But real maple syrup is also full of compounds touted for their health benefits, according to a professor from the University of Rhode Island.

Navindra Seeram, an assistant professor of pharmacy who specializes in medicinal plant research, found a cocktail of 20 antioxidants in 20 litres of the sweet stuff from Quebec, including 13 never before found in maple syrup.

Although he says more research is needed to determine whether people can actually benefit from maple syrup, Seeram adds the compounds are reported to have antibacterial, anti-cancer and anti-diabetic properties.

Seeram – awarded a $115,000 research grant by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada -- has a sugar maple tree trunk in his lab for future research.

“A lot of people don’t even think of using maple syrup as a sweetener,” he says. “Apart from putting it on your pancakes and your waffles, think about integrating it in your cuisine, in cooking.”

The newly-discovered compounds are types of lignans, also found in flax seed and whole wheat, a stilbene, which is in the same chemical class as the red wine extract resveratrol, and flavonoids, which are known for their anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and antioxidant properties.

Phenolic acids, commonly found in berries and coffee, were also found in the syrup.

Seeram thinks sugar maples might secrete phenolics as a defence mechanism when they are wounded by being tapped.

He says it makes sense that maple syrup contains antioxidant properties, because it comes from sap located just inside the maple tree’s bark, which basks in the sun.

His findings, presented this week at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco, are great news for the booming maple syrup industry.

Geneviève Béland, director of promotion and market development for the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, says maple syrup exports have increased by up to 10 per cent a year since 2003, with the exception of last year, when the crop was too small to fulfill worldwide demand.

Béland says Seeram’s study builds on previous research that has found maple syrup to contain a host of natural minerals such as calcium, vitamin B, zinc, potassium and magnesium.

“I think that we are at the beginning of a new life (for) maple products,” says Béland, who says she’s watched high-end chefs create incredible new flavours by mixing maple syrup, sugar or butter with other ingredients.

“We are realistic here,” Béland says. “It’s a sugar, for sure. It’s a little like olive oil. Olive oil is a fat, however, if you need to choose a fat, well, you’re better to choose something like olive oil. So it’s along the same thinking here: if you want to use a sugaring agent, you might prefer to choose maple syrup or a maple product.”

Registered dietitian Shannon Crocker says you would probably have to consume large amounts of maple syrup to benefit from its antioxidant properties. If anything, Canadians need to cut back on overall sugar consumption, not ramp it up.

“Yes, it may be better than white sugar but, bottom line, you still want to have small amounts of it,” Crocker says.

Although it’s much pricier than high-fructose commercial syrups with maple flavouring, Seeram says only real maple syrup is likely to contain these natural properties. It’s worth paying more for the real stuff.

But some consumers don’t even know the difference between syrups real and fake: a Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers survey found 50 per cent of Americans did not know whether they were buying real maple syrup or not.

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